John Ford Joins TRX Advisory Board

We're delighted to announce a new appointment to our Advisory Board – John Ford, General Manager for NPACT and Head of Programming for Justice Network

TRX, the online deal-management tool for buying and selling TV rights, is delighted to announce the appointment to its Advisory Board of John Ford, General Manager for NPACT, the 100-member US TV Producers’ trade association with offices in Washington, DC, New York and Los Angeles, and Head of Programming for Justice Network, a digital multi-cast channel offering crime and justice programming to 65 million broadcast homes nationwide.

Ford joins other leading figures from the world of international TV production, distribution, technology and finance on the board including Andrea Wong, former President, International Production for Sony Pictures Television and President, International for Sony Pictures Entertainment, John McVay, chief executive of Pact, the UK independent producers’ association, and Stephen Lambert, CEO of Studio Lambert.

The TRX service is now available to buyers and sellers around the world, having launched globally in October, enabling them to engage, negotiate and agree key deal terms online for the first time ever. TRX has announced that both BBC Worldwide and Sky Vision are listing their entire catalogues on TRX, joining many other leading distribution companies which have already done so, bringing to about 40,000 the number of hours of content that will be available on TRX.

Ford’s career spans forty years in media, including senior executive positions at Discovery Communications, National Geographic Channel and in public television.

At Discovery from 2007-09, Ford was president and general manager. He also headed up Discovery Times Channel and Military Channel. Ford was the Executive Vice President, Programming at National Geographic Channel, where he led a complete programming and ratings turnaround from 2003-2007.

At his first stint at Discovery, Ford headed up content for all domestic channels and launched both Discovery Health and Discovery HD channels. Ford was also EVP and General Manager for TLC. Under his guidance TLC was acquired by Discovery in 1991, and was one of the most dramatic cable growth stories of the 1990’s. Ford began his cable career as a Vice President at Discovery Channel. Prior to that he worked for public television stations in Dallas, Washington, DC and Philadelphia.

Ford is currently the General Manager of NPACT and Head of Programming for Cooper Media Group’s Justice and Quest networks. He is also President John Ford Media, LLC, offering consulting services in content creation, production and scheduling, distribution and broadcast/cable network management. Past clients include Scripps Interactive’s Travel Channel, ABC, TNT, AMC Networks’ WEtv, and National Geographic Channel, in addition to independent producers and emerging technology companies.

John Ford said: “I am truly delighted to be working with TRX and its team at this critical time for what promises to be a game-changing innovation in international program sales. I look forward to helping TRX engage with the multitude of US rights holders and distributors who can benefit from a suite of on-line tools designed to enable them to do more deals in the international market, easier and quicker than ever.”

David Frank, executive chairman of TRX, said: “We are honoured to have someone of John’s calibre, experience and insight working with us at TRX. He is one of the most respected voices among the US broadcast and production community and his endorsement will, I am sure, prove key in our plans to roll out TRX in the US.”

TRX enables TV program buyers to search for content, get instant rights availabilities and make offers for program rights all online. As such, its aim is to make deals easier, quicker and more efficient for both sales teams and buyers.

TRX was established in 2014 and began international roll out on 9th October 2017. It was founded by former RDF Media and Zodiak executives, brothers David and Matthew Frank, and has raised £11m of finance to date. Last month Sky increased its investment in the business from £1m to £2m.

Ford and the TRX team will be attending The Realscreen Summit 2018, from January 28 to 31st at the Marriott Marquis in Washington DC.

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